Vanuatu - Economic sectors

In 1999, agriculture contributed 25.7 percent of Vanuatu's
gross domestic product
(GDP), while industry made up 14.0 percent and services contributed
60.4 percent of GDP. Some value is attributed to subsistence agriculture
in the statistics for agriculture, and other significant contributors
are copra production and beef production. Industry is mostly made up of
small-scale manufacturing and construction. The large proportion of GDP
that derives from services can be attributed to government employment,
especially in education, as well as the tourism industry and offshore
banking facilities. The only data available about the
labor force
in Vanuatu are from the 1989 census, and these are quite different from
the GDP data (and 10 years older). Since the subsistence sector is such
an important element in the economy, it was decided by Vanuatu's
statistics department that "labor force" should include
all workers, whether they were working for cash or not. Thus, the
statistics show that about 75 percent of the labor force in 1989 was in
agriculture, and this percentage

includes all of those growing their own food for consumption as well as
those selling crops and those working for wages on a plantation.
Industry accounted for only 1.3 percent of the labor force, and services
23.9 percent; however, nearly all of those in industry and services were
in the formal sector. Also, it is likely that these proportions will
have increased during the 1990s, even when the subsistence component is
included.